Review: MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL zaps any life from the franchise

Was anyone really clamouring for another Men in Black sequel? Seven years after the release of Men in Black 3 comes Men in Black: International, an expansion of the film’s universe featuring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson taking over the reigns from Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as secret government agents protecting the Earth from all manner of extraterrestrial threats.

Theoretically, that’s a step in the right direction. The earlier movies in the franchise largely relied on the chemistry between the series’ main stars: the films were basically a traditional buddy cop set-up with some colourful aliens and a massive government conspiracy thrown in for good measure. After Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson’s roles in the recent Thor: Ragnarok demonstrated, the pair have an undeniable chemistry, which is unfortunately totally wasted in this surprisingly bland entry.

Men in Black: International seems to be going for a darker tone than the previous installments; the first half of the film has more in common with the Bond series than it does with the earlier entires in what has always been a fun and goofy set of films. Screenwriters Art Marcum and Matt Holloway seem to think that the audience is in any way invested in the actual machinations of the MIB hierarchy, adding in a plot about a rogue agent that only serves to detract from our time with our charismatic leads.

Tessa Thompson stars as Molly Wright, a woman who becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about the Men in Black following an alien encounter as a young child. She eventually manages to infiltrate the organization’s headquarters, where she comes to the attention of the head of the US brach, Agent O (Emma Thomspon). After proving her chops as an agent-in-training, she is teamed up with Agent H (Chris Hemsworth), a dopey yet cocky agent who once helped saved the world from a major alien invasion alongside the storied Agent High T (Liam Neeson).

The film then propels the duo on a globe-hopping journey so convoluted and over-stuffed that the details hardly matter. There are alien (and governmental) forces to battle, but director F. Gary Gray stages the action in such a stilted way that it often feels like we’re watching one of the most expensive B-movies ever put to screen. Even worse, we only get glimpses of the comically awkward chemistry between Hemsworth and Thompson, which is really the main selling point of the movie. Just when the pair are seemingly about to break into some banter to lighten up the film, the ADD-addled script has them flying off on yet another globe-hopping escapade, which is less fun than it sounds.

What stings most about how mundane this film turned out to be is that it should have worked. We know from Ragnarok that Thompson and Hemsworth make a great comedic team and can also handle major action sequences with ease, and director F. Gary Gray is also well-versed in handling comedy (Friday) as well as action (The Negotiator, The Italian Job). Yet even with that pedigree, most of Men in Black: International is simply joyless. There are almost no laughs in the first half of the film; the only real comic beats in the film come with the arrival of Pawny, a pocket-sized alien voiced by the great Kumail Nanjiani, who probably deserves his own Minions-like series.

The other MIB films may not have been sci-fi classics, but they were fun popcorn flicks that seemed aware of the campy and light tone they were going for. Men in Black: International goes off on a more serious route, but fails to capture any of the wonder or excitement of the earlier films. There are sone interesting alien designs that quickly pop-up throughout the film, but they’re shown so matter-of-factly (this is a world where aliens are commonplace to our characters) that they fail to elicit any excitement before they’re immediately punted off-screen.

It seems almost counter-productive to wonder why a summer franchise film exists, but this one is a real head-scratcher. Apart from putting a well-known (if not exactly beloved) piece of IP back in play, what exactly is the point of this movie? It feels like the producers cast an inspired pair of leads to continue the franchise, and then just assumed that everything would flow naturally from there.

It’s great to see a woman as one of the leads (there is almost an identical line here to one uttered in Dark Phoenix, with Thomspon’s character questioning the outdated gender designation of the Men in Black organization), but just casting a great lead is not enough — you have to actually give them something interesting to do. Charisma can take you so far, but it can’t save a bland and shockingly mundane film like this. The men (and women) in black deserve much better.